Get latest Wall Street Journal (WSJ) crossword

fetch-wsj-xword.R

fetch_xwd <- function(date) {
  
  if(missing(date)) {
    cur_date <- Sys.Date()
  } else {
    cur_date <- date
  }
  
  dayofweek <- as.character(lubridate::wday(cur_date, label = TRUE))
  
  # wsj doesn't have a crossword on their site for sunday, so we get the saturday one
  if(dayofweek == 'Sun') {
    cur_date = cur_date - 1
  }
  
  file_date <- as.character(format(cur_date, '%m%d%Y'))
  
  base_url <- "https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/XWD"
  file_name <- paste0(file_date,'.pdf')
  
  full_url <- paste0(base_url,file_name)
  dest_filename <- paste0(file_date,'_wsjcw.pdf')
  
  if(RCurl::url.exists(full_url)) {
    download.file(url = full_url, destfile = paste0(getwd(),'/Desktop/', dest_filename), quiet=TRUE)
  } else {
    message("Bad URL; Please check the URL and try again")
    message(paste0('URL used: ',full_url))
    return(invisible(NULL))
  }
  
}